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Definition

Statuspage.io provides real time notifications, in simple terms, when a System or Servie that is hosted by UMassOnline (or a vendor) is experiencing issues or is unavailable. With our custom status page, instead of replying to the entire organization when the site goes down, you can now have them opt-in to every status update. StatusPage.io allows you to post in detail about specific downtime incidents. You can also list the status of each individual functional unit of your site -- so if one function of your site is down but all of the other parts are working, you can indicate exactly what’s going on.

Minimize distractions during downtime: When servers are on fire, you don't need 100 internal emails and half of the executives stopping by asking why you're down.

Stakeholders

Background

In the past, UMassOnline had utilized a service called AlertSite to send out notifications to our campus administrators and other technical staff. Quite a few users were receiving notifications that were not relevant, and were also far too technical in nature, leaving more questions to be asked about the current state of an application. Once we discovered the flexibility of StatusPage.io, we realized that we could send target announcements to individual users for specifically the systems they use, we decided to begin utilizing the software.

Community

Associate user groups, SIGs, distribution lists, etc.

Costs

Annual License: $2,739 (12 months, Business Plan, 1 month free)

Business Continuity Strategy

The beauty of our Status Page is that it is hosted externally. Therefore, even when the entire UMassNet is down or degraded, we can still get a clear explanation as to what is occurring via StatusPage.io.

Methodology

Statuspage.io is connected to Pingdom via component subscriptions. This means that when our monitoring tool (Pingdom/AlertSite) trigger an error, a specialized notification is sent to StatusPage.io. Once the alert is triggered, canned notifications are automatically posted to status.umassonline.net, and a ticket is automatically created in JIRA and assigned to the SME. At this time, notifications are also sent to all relevant stakeholders (so long as they have signed up to receive alerts via Status.UMassOnline.net). If the issue is serious enought ot take the site down, a redirect rule in in place to redirect the page to http://status.umassonline.net, where the details of the outage are displayed for all to see. When an issue is updated, notifications are then sent again to email and text message. In addition, all notifications are posted to an open chat room via HipChat so that all IT personnel can work on the issue and converse without the need for a conference bridge to be established.